As agonizing as another last-second loss was for the Giants, all is not even close to being lost.
Big Blue can thank the woeful NFC East for that.
Even after letting what would have been a season-defining moment slip through their hands Sunday in a 27-26 loss to the unbeaten Patriots, Tom Coughlin’s 5-5 team enters its bye week as the only team in the division without a losing record.
As a result, the Giants are in first place — a half-game better than the Eagles and Redskins and 2 ¹/₂ games ahead of the rapidly fading Cowboys — and still control their own destiny despite riding a roller coaster of injuries and heartbreaking finishes the first 10 games.
That explains why Giants general manager Jerry Reese took a defiant tone about where his team stands Monday during his annual bye-week press conference.
“I feel like a first-place team because that’s where we are,” Reese said. “Obviously I really don’t want to talk about the first 10 games, the first 10 games are over, but we had some chances in some of those games to come out on top.”
That most likely will be the case, barring a sudden hot streak by the 4-5 Eagles or 4-5 Redskins — neither of whom has shown this season it is even remotely capable of that.
While the Giants are resting, Washington’s immediate task is the most difficult of all the East contenders. The Redskins must travel to Charlotte this weekend to face Cam Newton and the 9-0 Panthers.
As well as Kirk Cousins has played lately (he threw four TD passes while compiling a perfect 158.3 rating in Sunday’s rout of the Saints), he has no track record of consistency.
The Redskins also have shown no ability to win away from FedEx Field this season, going 0-4 while losing by an average margin of 12 points on the road. Four of Washington’s final seven games are on the road, including trips to Philadelphia and Dallas the final two weeks of the season.
The Eagles, meanwhile, are mired in uncertainty after possibly losing Sam Bradford to a shoulder injury and a concussion in Sunday’s embarrassing 20-19 home loss to the previously reeling Dolphins.
Mark Sanchez took over and sealed the loss by throwing an interception in the end zone — hardly a shocking development for the former Jet — in his first appearance of the season.
The Eagles will have to rely on their (admittedly formidable) running game if Bradford is forced to miss significant playing time, because a finishing kick that includes matchups with the 9-0 Patriots, 5-4 Bills and 7-2 Patriots looks daunting with the turnover-prone Sanchez under center.
The Cowboys appear reduced to a spoiler role after losing their first seven games after Tony Romo suffered a broken clavicle, but the Giants still can’t sleep on Dallas.
With Romo set to return this week against the Dolphins, the Cowboys could still play themselves back into contention. Dallas has almost no margin for error, but 8-8 or even 7-9 could still be enough to win the East, and the Cowboys still have plenty of pieces from a team that went 12-4 as recently as last season.
Even so, the Giants can still feel optimistic about their current top-dog status in the division.
“We’re 5-5, [but] we’re on top [of the East],” Reese said. “The division is going to come down to a couple games at the end probably, and we want to be one of the teams in the conversation at the end.”
With the rest of the division so shaky, it looks like only a collapse by his own team will keep Reese’s wish from happening.